Showhouse
5:00: Michelle Larkin, a college student of Amherst, accompanied by her pet, an American bulldog named Bruno, set foot into Showhouse. The live feed is currently at 450 viewers. The first of the polls are currently being negotiated between the Showhouse site admins and the anonymous audience. Michelle has a smile on her face. Prior to her arrival, she has stated that her therapist insisted she raise her confidence by setting challenges. As a past victim of bullying, she feels she can use this as an opportunity to rise above her agoraphobia. The page log is already at two hundred comments, a majority of which regard her weight without remorse. The door behind her slams shut and latches from the other side. There are no door handles on her side. Michelle is trapped in the large circular room dubbed by the admins, the pedestal. 5:05: Jason McDonald, a high school dropout and warehouse worker from Marshfield enters Showhouse. There are now 698 viewers attending the live feed. The admins have made a decision regarding the first poll. Today is Jason's 21st birthday. Jason believes that he has what it takes to make it through Showhouse. He recently ran a high endurance obstacle course called the gladiator challenge and believes Showhouse will be a walk in the park. He sizes up Michelle and smirks. Michelle immediately looks at her own feet while Bruno runs over to Jason and smells his hand. 5:17: Bill Swaim, AKA, Olly767 enters Showhouse. He is a YouTube "let's play" celebrity with eleven thousand two hundred and twenty nine subscribers. He enters the pedestal and addresses the cameras with a signature greeting he is renowned for. Michelle recognizes him and is apparently a big fan. There are now 1736 viewers attending the live stream. The admins have established the first round of pulls. The doors slam shut behind Bill. He is the last contestant in Showhouse. The comments are now in the thousands. Bill, despite his warm greeting by Michelle, is deeply detested by the audience of Showhouse. The admins take notice. 6:00 Showhouse officially begins as the signature theme song plays through the speakers. The volume is loud and the contestants cover their ears, startled by the bursting suddenness of it. The log trends with common expressions such as "lol" and "fucking pussies" and "I fucked Jesus" admins play the host track intro, a prerecorded monologue explaining the rules. The admins raise the master volume in the pedestal to max volume. The contestants continue to cover their ears. Their protests are drowned out entirely. The feed has reached maximum viewership. 2500 viewers. This is a cap that was agreed on two months ago to reduce lag. This is a fake explanation. Upper management refuses to disclose the real reason. 6:05: the contestants introduce themselves when they are displayed on the screen as was previously instructed. It was the only instructions they received. Bill repeats his signature greeting. The log trends with dissent. The admins agree that Bill's chances are grim. When Michelle introduces herself, the admins take notice of her nervousness, unfortunately so does the audience. Charlie is the last to introduce himself. He is very confident. The admins make bets with each other. 6:10 round one begins. The polls appear on the screen and the contestants watch nervously. Bruno is urinating on the wall close to Michele. Charlie is laughing as his name is winning. The poll challenge was to sing the "My Little Pony" theme song. The comments are thick with satirical remarks regarding a subculture known as "bronies". 6:22: Charlie clears his throat into a microphone provided by the pneumatic tube delivery system located near one of the entrances. The karaoke screen displays the lyrics, but before he begins, the surprise poll results that took place outside the awareness of the contestants interrupts and indicates that the majority vote demands he removes his pants. The admins watch him concede, and as they do, one of them sheds a tear because they see the next series of polls developing for the contestants. They are well aware that Showhouse was never meant for this, though in hindsight, they know that these results were obvious. Charlie removes his pants and sings My Little Pony. Trending comments indicate strong distaste towards homosexuality. Many are threatening death on each other. Others are debating religion. To the admins, this usually meant that interest was being lost. Data sampling of past screenings of Showhouse indicates that this is normal. Charlie buries his face in his hands upon completion. He is laughing in spite of the humiliation that he is experiencing. The other two contestants are also laughing. This is more or less precisely what they were expecting. The head admin lets out a sigh. The contestants do not know what is in store for them. They have been deliberately misinformed that all the rumors revolving around Showhouse are false. The reality however, much to the dismay of the head admin, is that the rumors are completely true. 6:25: The new poll is displayed and the viewers begin to vote. Charlie, Bill and Michelle are staring at the screen. The percentage of votes in the poll are weighing in towards Michelle. The task is shaving their head. Bill laughs since he is already bald. 6:47: Michelle is rubbing her partially bald head. She did a poor job of it as there are random patches of hair still in random spots. She is holding clippers from the the pneumatic tube system. Her expression is uneasy. She looks like she is on the verge of tears. The comments are trending with opinions regarding her sex appeal. They are not in her favor. Meanwhile the admins are presently banning several viewers for spamming. Their vacancies are filled almost immediately by viewers on a waiting list. 6:49: The admins display a sudden poll to follow Michelle's challenge. She is told to shave her dog. Michelle refuses, exclaiming that the viewers are taking the game too far. Some of the admins let out a deep sigh. The rules maintain absolute obedience, so long and so forth that it doesn't involve the death of the contestants. Failure to accommodate to these rules result in punitive actions decided by the demographic in attendance of the Showhouse broadcast. Such punitive actions have already been established in polls not made known to the contestants. The admins, bound by their duty, flip a switch with a drawn out moment of hesitation. The screen immediately displays a snuff film involving children for the contestants to watch at maximum volume. The comments trend with claims that the video is fake. It is not. 7:32: Bruno is partially bald and very frightened. Pieces of several clippers are scattered across the floor. Michelle broke three sets from hurling them at the screen. Bill's persona is replaced with the legitimacy of his visceral humanity as he is now wordlessly staring off into space with an expression of horror. Charlie is kicking at the doors, trying to break free. All three are oblivious to the new polls displayed on the monitor. According to the charts, this is statistically normal. The chatroom is slightly apathetic to their trauma. This too is normal. The poll shows strong favor towards Bill in a challenge involving Bruno and peanut butter. An admin informs the others that he saw this one coming a mile away. He sounds very, very disappointed, as he was the one who argued against letting her bring the dog in the first place. 7:42: The temperature of the room has been risen to one hundred and thirteen degrees Celsius. The chat logs are trending with comments regarding Michelle's weight once more. This is because she took off her sweat shirt. The punitive action for disobedience was temperature rise. This is a common punishment by the attending demographic, and the third time in a row that Showhouse has seen the action used. Bill has refused to oblige the challenge. Charlie continues attacking the door as Michelle protectively hugs Bruno who is panting. 8:21: Bill is pale. Charlie has given up on the door. Michelle is unconscious. The admins have run a poll asking to reduce the temperature. Twenty two percent say no. Two percent say yes. Seventy six percent vote yes on "raising it another ten degrees for the lulz" the admins fight among each other over whether or not they should claim to have obliged the results whilst actually lowering it instead. They chose to oblige the polls out of fear of the consequences from upper management. 8:24: The monitor reveals the next challenge. Urinate on Michelle's unconscious body. Charlie is bellowing insults maddeningly. Bill is sitting against the wall, he is trying not to cry. The percentages are clearly favoring Bill. The chatroom trends with hatred towards Michelle. The term "fat" is used frequently. 8:30: Bill moves to urinate on the wall in an act of defiance. 8:31: Enforcers are dispatched into the room. They are a group of large men in black featureless masks who answer only to upper management. They converge on Bill and beat him within an inch of his life. When subdued, they force a collar on him, then they overpower Charlie and force one on him. Then they fit one on Michelle last. Bruno whimpers in a corner after being cattle prodded for being over excited by the commotion. When they move to leave, Charlie moves to escape, but before he reaches the door, his collar emits a shock that forces him to his knees. They are once more alone and locked in the room. The comments are now trending with excitement and anticipation. Statistics verify this as normal. 8:38: Michelle wakes up to Bill crying in apology as he urinates on her. Sensing an assault on his master, Bruno viciously attacks Bill. Ripping his forearm open before lunging at his throat. Bill is spared of being killed by Bruno as Charlie restrains him before his teeth bare down. The chatroom is severely displeased by this. They clearly wanted Bill to die. 8:45: The new challenge is presented. Michelle, faints again when she sees it. Whether or not the trauma of realization or the heat caused it, is open to debate. Moments later, she is shocked back into consciousness. Charlie and Bill are dumbstruck. Charlie appeals to the admins. Everything up till now was cruel and unusual but this was just too much. Seemingly, this marks him as the prime candidate to the demographic, who trend the chatroom throughout his appeals with consistent terminology such as "lol" and "pussy" the challenge is to murder Bruno with a baseball bat. The guidelines, while maintaining that killing the contestants are strictly prohibited, does not apply to animals. 8;49: Charlie wins the poll at eighty nine percent. The door flings open and a bat is tossed into the room before it slams shut again. A thirty second timer appears on the monitor, ticking down the digits with a profoundly loud beep that overwhelms contestants ears. Charlie picks up the bat and uses it to smash the door. It isn't effective. 8:50: The timer reaches zero. Everyone receives a shock. The timer restarts. The chatroom is at its most active. 8:53: Michelle is screaming as Charlie smashes Bruno in the face with the baseball bat. His hind leg is twitching by the fifth swing. By the seventh, he is dead. Charlie throws the bat then regurgitates all over himself. 8:54: Michelle picks up the bat and charges Charlie with it. Charlie wrestles the bat away from Michelle and smashes her in the ribs with it before Bill tackles him, the admins intervene and shock them all. They all have finally come to the agreement that letting her bring the dog was counter productive. One reluctantly argued that he thought it would make the people come around. There were no statistics prior to this moment to imply this would happen. One of the admins begins to punch in the data for future study. 8:57: The next challenge appears on the monitor. Michelle's name is removed from the votes. The challenge was to pull her two front teeth out with pliers. Michelle immediately covers her mouth. Moments later, she passes out. Moments later, she wakes screaming as she frantically clutches her collar. Then she clutches her ribs. She can no longer stand. She looks at her dead dog and begins to cry. 8:59: Charlie is elected to pull her teeth with the poll resulting at eighty four percent in his name. A pair of pliers arrives in the pneumatic tube. The admins see what the punitive action was upon failure to comply. This being the final round, the rules were thus dictated: "In the result of final challenge, should participants be engaged in refutation based protocol number three decimal four, they shall be subjected to punitive measurement eighteen up to three intervals of count down, and then subject to punitive legislation in accordance to popular consent so forth that it resides in accordance to first law guidelines" the admins were reluctant to extract comfort in these words for knowledge that the danger based on measurement eighteen was very fatal. In the past, the admins have argued to upper management that this was too dangerous. Management disregarded their claims, insisting that the rules are not to be broken. The thirty second timer starts to count down. 8:59: The contestants receive an elongated shock at higher voltage than prior to. 9:00: The contestants receive another elongated shock. Bill and Michelle begin to exhibit signs of heatstroke. 9:00: The contestants receive their final elongated shock. Bill falls unconscious. There is smoke rising out of his mouth. The admins are now screaming at each other. 9:01: The ventilation shaft opens in the ceiling. A swarm of wasps pour into the room, driving Charlie and Michelle into panic. Charlie screams uncontrollably for twenty two seconds then picks up the bat with one hand, and the pliers with his other. Michelle is too preoccupied with swatting at the swarm of wasps to notice Charlie charge her with the bat. He smashes her in the head with desperate strength. She dies immediately. With the pliers, he rips her teeth out while sustaining what could possibly be hundreds of stings from wasps. He rises to his feet and holds her blood covered teeth for the cameras. The door opens up while a bell rings. Charlie runs out of the room, ignoring the cheerful host recording that is declaring him the winner along with the cheap confetti dropping from the ceiling. The door slams shut behind him. The Showhouse live stream ends. The chatroom stays active for forty six more minutes. The admins engage in a long heated argument about the deaths of Bill Swaim and Michelle Larkin. 9:47: Charlie is handed an envelope by staffing personal containing two hundred dollars. A bag is then placed over his head and he is choked unconscious and then relocated to his car many towns over. 1:32: Charlie succumbs to his wounds and dies in an emergency waiting room. As it turns out, he is severely allergic to wasps. This is a detail that the admins missed. 3:06: The admins are satisfied with their data. In spite of the incident involving the dog, the statistics show that this is normal. Money is exchanged as bets are concluded. They all leave the control room except for one, the man who inherited the his position as head operator of Showhouse from his best friend after she died. Her thesis regarding humanity, while extremely optimistic in nature, has been proven wrong once again by her own experiment. His contract binds him to five more screenings of Showhouse before he is allowed to pull the plug. He is not optimistic that upper management will allow it, given the leverage they have over him. He recalls his own apprehension when he first heard that she was placing the show in their hands. She may have been fooled by their front, but he wasn't, but all at once, there was nothing he could have done to prevent it either way. The last remaining admin reflects on her original claims and weeps long into the night. Category:Computers and Internet